Bonjour! I hope everyone had the best Thanksgiving ever
because this year's Thanksgiving was one that I will never forget! They don't
really sell Thanksgiving food here in Africa but we did our best and it
actually turned out pretty successful! We were able to find some of the
ingredients to make mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas, and rolls. Elder Nokes had gravy packs we used, and we made apple pie for desert. If you
ask me that's pretty dang impressive for a couple of guys that don't really know
how to cook. Oh yeah and I forgot... what's Thanksgiving
without meat? Unfortunately the don't have turkey here but they sure do have a
whole lot of chickens. So my comp and I, after sector went and bought 2 chickens
for $5. It was classic just walking through sector with our missionary clothes
on carrying live chickens. They kept trying to fly away but I had a good grip
on their feet. They weren't going anywhere! Everyone loved seeing the white guy
carry chickens. They all got a good laugh out of that. Luckily we have
2 Malagasy in our apartment and they know how to kill and clean chickens
so we weren't just completely in the dark with this part. They let Elder Nokes
and I kill them and they said the best way was to just grab them by the neck and
swing 'em around. It actually worked pretty well but what I didn't know was that
when you swing them around they poop a lot.... Unfortunately, I was behind Elder
Nokes when he started so I just got blasted with chicken poop, which was not
pleasant. The whole time we were doing this they were just laughing saying if
your mom knew you were doing this I don't think she would be happy... SORRY
MOM! After we finished that the power went out in our apartment which made
preparation super tough and put a real damper on everything but it was still
good and just made it even more memorable. The Malagasy cleaned and cooked
the chicken. Thanksgiving was a real feast!
We have a lot of Amis that are so close to being on the
verge of progressing but our church time is super tough. Our church starts at 7
here so everyone always just sleeps through. It's hard for us as missionaries
too because we have to wake up at 5 so that we can go find people before
church. We always go knock on people's doors that said they would come and they
are just asleep. It's the biggest bummer. We have one Ami that comes but her
problem is that she doesn't speak french. We have to teach with an interpreter
every lesson and I think its super hard for the interpreter to translate into
tribal and his explanations end up being long and confusing so by the end of
the lesson she ends up forgetting everything. She wants to get baptized but she
doesn't know anything and doesn't speak french so I don't even know how she
would do a baptismal interview. It's ok though Gods got us. It'll all work
out.
I've been surprised with how un-Christmassy this December has
been but I honestly think it's a blessing that absolutely NOTHING happens here.
No Christmas decorations anywhere and it's still just like 100 degrees and feels
like any other day. Everyone is always telling me I look like a tomato and need
to find a hat. I'm always just like, trust me if I could find a hat here I
would've bought it! hahah I'll keep looking.
But the work here is advancing. I'm loving being able
to speak better and actually hold my ground in a lesson. It makes the work so
much more fun!
I love you guys. I'm so happy we are in this work together!
Thanks for all the prayers!
Bisou,
Elder Freedman
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